About a month ago I created a short Twitter survey. The idea for this survey emerged out of discussions about using Twitter in learning environment and the varied responses I received from students and educators. This inspired me to capture and share these responses in hopes that we might, collectively, demystify this weird new moment of microcontent. I distributed the survey via my blog and Twitter network and solicited responses for two weeks.
Download it here: Twitter Survey [PDF]
Of all of the questions I asked, I was most interested in knowing HOW we can use Twitter for productive ends. Read on (below)
Twitter is, essentially, a microcontent delivery system. How might Twitter might be used - for education, media, publishing, personal use, work, study, etc?
1. Not much thought to how it *could* be used; am satisfied it’s allowed for a tighter-but-still-loose connection with some friends, old and new.
2. Group cohesion in geographically-distributed work teams. The social-cohesion channel, not the task-focus channel.
3. To promote ideas that one may be interested in sharing with others. - To immediately share topics, articles or links of interest. - To actively and quickly respond to others within a community. This is essentially a public conversation that anyone can participate in via various methods ranging from mobile devices to desktop or web-based interfaces.
4. heard it referred to as a “microblog”
5.I think it is great for all of those things, but I can think of easily applicable uses for education, work, and personal use. I noticed that Professor Rheingold “tweeted” some notes about the upcoming class on occasion, which could definitely be a useful thing. For personal and work use, (as I said before), I would like it better if only my close friends/associates that I choose were reading my tweets.
6. It’d be great to see more news organizations (local and otherwise) jump on the Twitter-wagon.
7.A valuable tool for in-class discussion.
8. I feel like it is used in the same way as msn or facebook could be used. could see it as a communiqué that could help large corporations or large groups coordinate projects and communicate within their own networks. As a networking tool to be used by students like myself, I find it difficult to do so if the people I want to connect to have a handle and probably privacy settings.
9.Obviously, it’s useful for education. It has applications for media and publishing, but it kind of feels a bit like a “dumbing down” of content. Microcontent? Does no one have an attention span anymore? (Probably not)
10. great for constrained writing ie haikus - also good as a streaming mind hive of those you respect
11.Distributed teams keeping in touch - loosely and maybe even formally around a specific work task. Can be used for announcement / broadcast content.
12. I use it as methadone against the heroin of my blogging and surfing habits: a measured dose which soothes my cravings. It also has occasional practical uses, when I ask my loose circle of friends for a solution to a problem (usually either technical or about daily life in my home town).
13. Twitter is building brain bridges, find minds that think alike and connect to their owners’ blogs, del.icio.us, music, videos etc.. Twitter leads to social object explosion ;-) (You heard it here first)
14. digital story telling in 140 increments brainstorming social reporting throughout city by student reporters
15. I have learned that it can be used in the classroom and I’m constantly learning new ways from other people on Twitter. I think it would be a great way for students to ask questions when they don’t feel comfortable doing it out in the open.
16. http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/
17. I have to think about that one.
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